


Kid

by GreyLiliy



Series: Whumptober 2020 - Peter Parker [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Action, Angst, Animal Abuse, Buried Alive, Cages, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Human Experimentation, Memory Loss, Minor Character Death, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27115289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyLiliy/pseuds/GreyLiliy
Summary: Kid fell onto his side and hugged himself. He couldn’t shake a bad feeling buzzing in the back of his mind. Almost like a dull, constant scream that felt so familiar, but he couldn’t place where he’d felt it before.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Whumptober 2020 - Peter Parker [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1975432
Comments: 1
Kudos: 64
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Kid

**Author's Note:**

> _Whumptober 2020!  
>  Prompt No 4. RUNNING OUT OF TIME  
> Caged | Buried Alive | Memory Loss  
> _
> 
> I did my first prompt-swap. “Collapsed Building” is one of those things that’s been done to death with Spider-Man (It’s an iconic comic moment, recreated in one of the movies with MCU!Parker, etc) and I didn’t particularly feel like writing about it (in other words, if I have Spider-Man in a collapsed building I’m going to feel obligated to reference those iconic moments and I…don’t want to. Simple as that.).
> 
> So I swapped “Collapsed Building” out for No. 9 on the Alternate Prompts list, “Memory Loss.” It felt like a good match for the other two & was fun to work with. :D
> 
> Decided to write about MCU!Spider-Man for this one (which is particularly fun because I have only seen MCU!Peter in the Avengers Movies & Civil War and my knowledge of his stand alone flicks is limited). Still though, I liked what I saw of him in the group movies & I loved his relationship with Tony. So I might as well write about him too in the Peter Parker Whump Fest! (And it’s Canon Divergent, because *waves at End Game ending*).
> 
> Thank you again for reading! On with the Whump!

“Kid.”

The guard was back. Kid opened his eyes and rolled onto his side, shoving the straw around on the bottom of his cage. He sat up and pulled a bit of straw out of his hair. His captor stood in front of the cage, holding a tray with a granola bar and a bottled water.

“Time to eat up.” The gruff man tossed the granola bar and bottled water into the cage through the bars. “You know where the trash goes.”

“Yes, sir,” Kid said, carefully reaching for the food in the straw. The man glared at him and he remembered to tack on a “Thank you, sir.”

The captor left, tossing the metal tray onto a table with a loud clang that woke a nearby bobcat. It hissed and batted at the cage with a growl.

When Kid heard the door to the back room shut, he ripped open the granola bar and forced himself to eat it in small bites. They weren’t going to take it away, but it was all he had for the rest of the night. He’d learned to ration in the two weeks he’d been in the cage.

Kid still had no idea why he was there or how he got there.

He didn’t even know his name.

The doctors and everyone who ran the experiments called him “Kid,” so he figured that was close enough to a name to use for himself. One day he caught sight of a form that said “Memory Test” next to a stack of paperwork that a picture of his face on it.

That could explain why he didn’t remember anything, or why no one seemed inclined to tell him.

“I wish I knew what they wanted,” Kid said, taking another slow bite. “This is so boring.”

He glared at the cage bars and back around the room. There had been a total of six human teenagers, five large cats (including a tiger!), seven dogs, fifteen monkeys, and five birds when Kid first “woke up” two weeks ago.

Since then, the other five humans had been taken away, and then only animals that remained were the bob cat, the tiger, three monkeys, and a very quiet songbird that stopped singing after it had a visit with one of the doctors.

If its visit went like Kid’s own check-up, he couldn’t blame it.

The bob cat hissed one more time before it walked in a circle and made a bed of its own straw. Kid’s stomach grumbled and he gave in, finishing the granola bar in two more bites. He took a swig of water and scooted back, leaning against the bars of the cage.

Sooner or later, it’d be his turn and he’d discover what happened to the others.

He was the last human test subject left and they wouldn’t keep him there forever.

Kid fell onto his side and hugged himself.

He couldn’t shake a bad feeling buzzing in the back of his mind. Almost like a dull, constant scream that felt so familiar, but he couldn’t place where he’d felt it before. It had become such a constant headache, Kid had taken to ignoring it.

He closed his eyes and settled for a nap.

It’s not like he could break iron bars.

* * *

“Look at it squeal!”

A screech jerked Kid out of sleep. He sat up and flung hay around him in his jerk. To his left, a couple of the guards had pulled a monkey from its cage and were teasing it. One held it by the neck as it squirmed and wriggled.

Another pulled its tail, drawing out another screech of pain.

“Hey!” Kid shouted and put his hand on the cage door. “What’re you doing?”

“Having some fun!” The guard yelled back. He banged the monkey’s head against a door and laughed as it stopped moving, save for the swift moving chest as it breathed. “Aw, I broke it.”

Kid clutched the gate and got on his knees, banging his head against the top of the cage. “Stop! You’re going to kill it!”

“They’re all good as dead anyway,” the guard said. He tossed the monkey aside and reached into the cage for another. “Animal testing is over so we’re free to do as we like!”

The three guards laughed as they pulled another struggling monkey from the cage. Once it was free, they slammed the cage shut again, locking the last little monkey inside. They continued to torment the one in hand, and pulled its tail—hard, as if they meant to rip it off.

“Stop it!” Kid shouted, hitting the cage door. “Stop it right now!”

“I think he feels left out,” one guard whispered. “Maybe we should let him play, too. Would you like to break something? Too bad! This one’s all ours!”

The guard lifted the monkey’s body, screeching and clawing at the gloved hands and moved to bash its head against the top of a cage.

“I said stop!” Kid slammed his fist into the cage door—and the metal crunched.

The animals in the room started to howl and scream, while the three guards and kid stared at the twisted metal of the broken door. Kid looked at his fist and then the door again. He gritted his teeth and slammed it again, putting all of his strength into the punch.

The cage door broke off, flying across the room.

Kid knew time was short and threw himself out of the cage. Not a single guard could call for help.

“Stop him!” A guard dropped the monkey, but instead of hitting the ground, it clung to his leg and climbed up his head, scratching at the man’s face. “Get off! Get off!”

Kid tackled the guard next to him and grabbed his head, hitting it against a crate.

The man went down and Kid’s body felt like it moved on its own as he turned and kicked the guard struggling with the monkey in the stomach. Even faster, he caught a wooden club the third guard tried to bash him in the head with.

“This ends,” Kid said. He ripped the wooden club away and hit him with it. The guard fell and joined the other three on the ground. “Are you okay?”

The monkey jumped on the man’s back twice before it came over to Kid and patted him on the leg. The little creature ran back to the cage it was from and banged on the door, looking back at Kid with pleading eyes.

“I’ll get it.”

Kid grabbed the door and inhaled and exhaled twice before ripping the cage door off and freeing the last one. When the two monkeys were reunited, Kid looked around the room.

There were more to be freed.

He didn’t know where his strength came from, but he was thankful as he kicked open the tiger’s cage and freed the bob cat. He was more gentle with the bird’s cage and smiled as it flew out a tall window and started to sing outside.

“Time for me to leave, too,” Kid said. He was careful to avoid the tiger sniffing around the corner and slammed himself into the door that locked the experiments away in their cages. “Now where?”

An empty stone hallway greeted Kid, with nothing in either direction. He swallowed and was careful to stay low as he went left on a whim. His empty stomach growled, angry at the lack of food with all the excess energy but he had to keep moving.

Something was waiting for him.

Kid knew it!

He ran down corridor after corridor, wishing he remembered the path to the labs the few times he’d been taken for a check-up on his vitals and to take readings. Kid could run the opposite direction of that and find a way out—or something.

The empty building gave him empty room after empty room. Kid wondered where the other guards were. Had all three really been with him and the animals? Where were the others? The doctors? The scientists.

At the end of the hallway was a large door and Kid rammed it with his shoulder. It flew off its hinges, thanks to the enhanced strength he apparently possessed. Kid stumbled out into the yard and lifted his head, sucking in a breath.

He was in a desert.

A pain burned in the back of his head and a siren screamed behind him as the building roared to life. He heard footsteps and Kid was not going to stick around. He needed help. Kid needed to get out.

So he ran.

Kid’s bare feet dug into the sand as he raced away from the building. He could see a road in the distance—that was good! A road meant a path to follow and other people. He made it two more steps before another shooting pain struck him in the head. Kid held it and winced and—

His next step fell through the ground.

The sand swallowed him, dropping Kid into a pit under the sand. He sucked in a breath and rolled on his side, pushing himself up. Sand continued to hit him on the head and he looked up to see it continuing to fill the hole.

“Hey,” Kid said. He stood and shoved at the sand. It kept coming down, racing to fill the pit that his misstep had made. The guards were awful, but maybe if they came for him he could fight them when they got him out. He hoped they were looking outside the building. Kid shouted, “Help!”

He scraped until his lungs were hoarse but the sand kept pouring in, filling the pit. He climbed out of the sand, hoping to keep ahead of the mound. Maybe if it got high enough, he’d have a chance to get out—

“Look what we’ve got here,” a guard said. Standing near the opening of the pit, stood the guard who’d had his face scratched. “The little freak fell into one of our traps.”

Kid swallowed.

“The scientists’ll be mad to lose their last subject but this is worth it,” the guard said. He laughed and kicked another wave of sand over Kid’s head. “You can stay down there and suffocate! Give me a hand with this.”

More and more sand poured down, faster than Kid could climb over it. Laugher burned in his hears above and Kid sucked in a breath just before his head was covered.

Using his strength he tried to climb up through it, but the sand was heavy and fluid. Every moment felt pointless and no matter how he pushed and squirmed there was always a new wave of sand to fill its place.

They were burying him.

He scrunched his eyes shut and wriggled, but the heavy sand grew worse and worse until he couldn’t move. His lungs burned. Kid would die under the sand, buried alive and hot.

His weak body, hungry and exhausted from breaking the cages and running gave up on him and he stilled. He couldn’t breath. The world was dizzy, though he wasn’t moving.

He couldn’t move.

He—

“Kid!” An echoing, loud shout burst through everything as the sand blasted away. Kid sucked in a breath when his face was exposed, and he looked up into the eyes of a—robot? The red and gold figure reached down and held out its hand. “Hey, there. I’ve got you!”

He didn’t hesitate to take the hand, and the voice in the back of his mind was silent for the first time in weeks.

The robot dragged him out of the sand, and onto the safe turf above. The guards that had buried him were all on their knees with their hands behind their heads, while another robot in dark armor pointed guns at them.

“Is the kid okay?”

“I think so,” the first one said. His metal hand stayed on Kid’s shoulder in a protective gesture that made him feel…safe. But why? “You okay, kiddo?”

“Do you know me?” Kid asked, unsure of how to answer the question. He’d spent two weeks in a cage surrounded by filth, animals, and other teenagers that were long gone. He wasn’t okay, but he wasn’t hurt either. “I don’t know you.”

The metal man’s face folded back, revealing an older man with a goatee and dark hair. So the robot was a person in a suit—neat.

“If you’re joking, Parker, this isn’t the time,” the man said. “We’ve been looking for you for two months.”

“Months?” Kid asked. He put a hand to his head and swayed. “I’ve been gone two months? But I’ve only…it’s been two weeks.”

“He doesn’t look good, Tony,” said the other robot—other man? “Who knows what those Hydra goons did to him in there.”

“You’re right,” the man in red said. He rubbed Kid’s (Parker’s?) shoulder and exhaled. “Come on. We’ll get you cleaned up and have someone take a look at you, okay?”

“Okay.”

Kid agreed. His head was still quiet and he was too tired to struggle as the man in red picked Kid up in his arms jumped up, flying in the air. Somewhere in his mind, Kid wondered if he should be surprised by that—but he wasn’t.

It felt normal.

But why?

* * *

A pretty woman with red hair joined Tony and Kid in an office. A nice man named Dr. Banner had cleared Kid’s health and said he was physically fine. The woman had a stack of files, one of which Kid recognized.

It was the one that said he was a memory experiment.

“Brain wipe,” she said, throwing it on the table. “Like what happened to Bucky, but with more electric shocks and less brainwashing.”

“Their end goal?”

“No idea,” the woman said. “They were mostly testing how many times they could wipe a brain before the damage was permanent and it effected other abilities. Peter was the long-term subject out of the group of students they abducted. They erased his mind and waited to see if ill effects would show up after a long period of time. According to the report, the last one had been—”

“Two weeks ago,” Kid said, speaking up. He didn’t appreciate the others in the room talking about them like he wasn’t there. “The first thing I remember was waking up in the cage two weeks ago.”

“Cage?” Tony asked. His hand twisted into a fist. “What cage?”

“They kept me and the other teenagers in cages with the animals,” Kid answered. He shrugged and rubbed his arm. “I don’t know why—oh! Did you find any of the others? There were six of us.”

The woman shook her head and swallowed. “We couldn’t find a trace of them. We suspect they were buried out in the desert.”

“Then how did you find me?”

“I bugged you,” Tony said. He lifted Kid’s wrist and turned it over, poking a spot near his vein. “After you snuck onto a spaceship, I wanted to make sure I could find you no matter where you were. It worked great until your signal cut off two months ago.”

“The base you were being kept in had shielding that killed outside signals,” the woman said. “When you escaped, your signal went live and Tony immediately set out to go get you.”

“Oh,” Kid said. His chest felt warm and his mouth stretched into a smile. “So you must care about me.”

“Yeah, kid,” Tony said. He reached over and pulled Kid into a hug, squeezing him tight. Kid hugged him back, snuggling in. “I sure do.”

Kid still couldn’t remember anything about his past or from before those two weeks, but he knew he was warm and with someone who loved him.

That was enough for the moment.

Everything else could come later.


End file.
